Important news (thanks jacko3334) - EA has decided to hand support of online play on the majority of its Command and Conquer titles to XWIS. Here's what the EA community manager had to say:

To continue the ten year anniversary celebration of the widely popular Command and Conquer franchise, I am pleased to reveal EAís partnership with XWIS (XCC WOL IRC SERVER)!

Through this partnership, all Command and Conquer games formerly supported by EA/Westwood Online will be redirected through XWIS, thus instituting XWIS as the main online game server management team. XWIS is a community driven online game server that launched in October 2003 to replace the XCC Community Ladder. The new and improved features enabled include chat, in-game ranks, matching filters, lobby monitoring, improved Quick-Match, and fully functional automatic ladders for clans and individual tournament players. The beauty of this partnership is that you wonít have to download any external programs to utilize XWIS. All the enabled features and connections to the servers are already integrated into the supported games!

Iím also excited to share with you that the Strike Team will be monitoring the banning and anti-cheat controls on a daily basis and will provide technical support as needed. The Strike Team is a website built of hardcore Command and Conquer fans and is sponsored by the EA German Community Team. Their goal is to ensure a controlled and fun online environment for all players.

XWIS will commence a two week trial period with Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 and Command & Conquer Red Alert 2: Yuriís Revenge. Once this trial is completed on Oct. 20th, XWIS will be supporting the following EA/Westwood online games:

Command & Conquer Red Alert 2

Command & Conquer Red Alert 2: Yuriís Revenge

Command & Conquer Tiberian Dawn

Command & Conquer The Covert Operations

Command & Conquer Red Alert

Command & Conquer Red Alert: Counterstrike

Command & Conquer Red Alert: Aftermath

Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun

Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun: Firestorm

Command & Conquer Renegade

Dune 2000

Nox

Emperor: Battle for Dune

EA is 100% dedicated to the Command and Conquer franchise and wants to ensure a strong and secure online gameplay environment. Long live Command and Conquer! We hope to see resurgence in the legions of NOD and GDI followers claiming ground online.

--Apoc
Community Manager & Marketing Liaison

To summarise, you won't have to download any new software - online games of RA2 and YR will automatically be played on XWIS servers, which have chat enabled and active moderation etc. Great news which should hopefully give some of these games a boost.